Joe Judge might only be in his second season as an NFL head coach, but he’s been around the NFL for nearly a decade. He’s expected to know the rules because he’s apparently a Football Guy.
All scoring plays in the NFL are automatically reviewed — it’s something that has been around since the 2011 season (Judge’s first year with the Patriots was 2012). You can’t challenge scoring plays, and if the challenge flag does get thrown on a scoring play, it costs the team a timeout.
Judge briefly forgot all about that pesky rule during Sunday’s Week 1 matchup between the Giants and Broncos.
After Albert Okwuegbunam made a nice effort to reach for the pylon for a Denver touchdown, Judge didn’t think to wait for the play to reach its automatic review. He threw the challenge flag and stood there perplexed as the officiating crew explained to him that he just lost his first timeout of the half.